This picture that I made loosely resembles the adventurers from my Dungeon World Game.
This picture that I made loosely resembles the adventurers from my Dungeon World Game.
Campaign Log: now four sessions in. Brutal fight with Nightwings in this session.
Campaign Log: now four sessions in. Brutal fight with Nightwings in this session.
The Wizard is Not Allowed to Feed Peasants to the Gryphons
The Wizard is Not Allowed to Feed Peasants to the Gryphons
We had an exciting milestone in my Dungeon World game on Friday: the players (OK, one of the players) actually made it to the dungeon. (For an example of the sort of things that have interfered with this goal in the past: https://plus.google.com/105179574276953345976/posts/bUi3aEyXqD8)
But I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about the wizard, who can consistently be relied on to roll <6 when trying to (ab)use his power for convenience. In this case, it was trying to get rid of the man who had come tracking the herd of goats that had been stolen from his elderly parents' farm the previous night.
(The PCs were behind the theft, of course. They needed the goats to feed the baby gryphons, you see.)
…
…maybe I should explain about the gryphons first.
So the wizard had to miss a session. This was right after he cast Alarm again (see the link) without telling anyone. Of course the other players knew, and when his character was missing the next morning they were full of trepidation. I figured I would start him off with an Apocalypse-World style “love letter” when he returned.
So he wakes up covered in a corpse. Since he’s a budding necromancer this is not actually all that unusual, but this time he wasn’t involved in the making of it. He’s also got sticks poking into his back, and there are large eggs. One of them is rocking back and forth.
The corpse is the corpse of a cultist who had been carried off by a gryphon in the session he’d missed. He uses it to distract the hatching baby gryphons and…well, let’s just say his escape attempts gain him several XP and wind up with him running into town, wearing only a gryphon’s eggshell, and pursued by hornets.
The wizard (and possibly more importantly, the hornets) arrive just in time to help the rest of the PCs disrupt a bear-baiting that is a thinly veiled excuse for the fighter to take Animal Companion as a multiclass move.
Anyway, the Druid decides that a gryphon is just what they need to help them fight the goblins. Or maybe the cultists. I’m not sure which. I’m not sure the Druid knew either. But he said “I can talk to animals, so I can parlay with them, right?” “Sure,” I said, “but you need something they want as leverage.”
So they’re heading up to the mountain with a stolen horse.
(No, the goats come later.)
The horse belonged to the village headman, who they have taken an extreme dislike to after deciding that he was behind the death of the local witch. They later discovered the actual culprits, but (in a stunning proof of the applicability of the theory of inertia to the field of social relations) still hate the headman.
The parlay…does not go well, and the Fighter winds up hitting the gryphon a little too hard with his giant meat tenderizer. And when its pointed out that the gryphon appeared to be a single parent, he decides that it is now the party’s responsibility to care for the baby gryphlets. So he and Nils…
…Nils. Nils is the other cultist, the one that didn’t get carried off by the gryphon. The druid has been brainwashing him (re-brainwashing him? Dude was in a cult…) and plans to teach him to be a druid.
So the Druid and Nils go get the gryphlets and they head back to the late witch’s cottage which they have been using as a base.
We are almost to the goats, I promise.
The thing about gryphlets is that they eat like birds. By that, I mean they consume a surprising percentage of their body weight in food each day. So the horse doesn’t last long, and they need another source of meat. Eating the fighter’s bear is briefly considered and then rejected. So the PCs decide to steal some goats.
The Druid has a plan, and the Bard decides to try out his boosted “Aid” ability, so they and the Fighter head off to find a nearby farm, where under the cover of darkness the bard sings some goatherding songs (Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!) and the Druid turns into a goat to get them all to follow him. He rolls 7-9 so the elderly owners of the farm show up and…spot the Bard, who they believe is there to fix their wobbly stool.
(That is not quite as random as it seems. The Bard had earlier claimed to be—or was mistaken for—a furniture maker. I forget why. I think the PCs have forgotten too.)
Anyway the Bard manages to distract them from the departing goats and is then rescued by the Fighter, who claims that there is a problem at the furniture factory…shop…place. So now they’ve got a herd of goats, two baby gryphons, a bear, and an ex-cultist.
The Druid goes off to scout the mines where they believe the cult is at, and when the other PCs return from hunting goblins, they spot a strapping young peasant lad slowly coming up the path. The wizard turns invisible and sneaks up on him, seeing that he appears to be following the tracks of a herd of goats. One sudden appearance later and he confirms that the peasant is the son of the elderly couple and is looking for whoever stole his parent’s livelihood and left them to starve. He’s pretty determined.
“Aw man,” says the wizard. “OK. Charm Person.”
6.
Now the obvious answer here is to have the spell entirely fail, or have it make the guy turn hostile. But that’s kind of dull and let’s be honest, he wouldn’t really be much of a threat. So instead, the spell works too well. The strapping young peasant lad is now completely and totally head over heels in love with the middle-aged, wild-haired cadaverous necromancer. And can’t bear to be parted from him. We’re talking Overly Attached Girlfriend Peasant here.
Thinking quickly, the wizard says, “I’ll show you where your goats are!” They’re almost to the hut when the rest of the party figures out what the wizard is up to and (after navigating the treacherous shoals of the moral crisis) decides that they really shouldn’t let him feed the poor ensorcelled dupe to the ravenous lionbirds. Instead, they force him to take the peasant and the two remaining goats back to the old couple (for a bizarre “meet the parents” scene).
It didn’t stick – the man opted to leave his family and follow the necromancer. (Barbarian, to the parents: “I am so sorry.”) So…we’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, the Druid has found the missing silversmith and realized that the goblins and the cultists are working together. After a daring horse Druidback escape, they’re fleeing back towards the cottage, pursued by angry goblins.
“Why aren’t we playing this with Fiasco rules, again?”—me
https://plus.google.com/105179574276953345976/posts/bUi3aEyXqD8
Last night, PCs interrogated a captured dwarven nationalist/racist, captured the Orc One Eye who had violated the…
Last night, PCs interrogated a captured dwarven nationalist/racist, captured the Orc One Eye who had violated the Dwarf-Orc peace treaty by allying herself with a necromancer and attempting to raise an army of zombie elves, healed some sick crocodilians who had been poisoned by unholy water seeping out of an old mine in the swamp, and chased the necromancer’s servants through that mine.
First actual play report!
First actual play report!
Normal Thursday RPG group. Wasn’t prepared to run our normal Savage Worlds campaign; we were going to do board games but I offered a one shot. We were down a player.
Our group consisted of Terrance, the human wizard from Bumpton, a small old market town; Gorm Foekiller, the halfling barbarian who was exiled from his tribe for killing the tribe’s unicorn; and Flowerblossom, a human druid from the Purple Forests of Soren Carr, whose tell was that his purple hair came with him whenever he changed shape.
I posited the premise to the group: You were in a Temple, and there was a Portal in the Temple. Nine characters went in, but Bad Things Happened, and only three of you made it to the Portal. On the other side, was a Bastion.
To Gorm, I posed the following questions: Whose Temple was it and why did you go there? Where was the Temple? Gorm answered that the Temple was to Feng’Narr, the God of Death, deep within the abandoned Capital City of the Ancient Empire of the Golem People.
To Flowerblossom, I posed the questions: Where is the Bastion? Who holds it? Who do they hold it against? Flowerbossom answered that the Bastion was the Purgatorial Wall, holding back the Angels, and was a fell castle held by Fallen Angels.
To Terrance, I asked: What was the Bad Thing that Happened, and whose fault was it? It was the Bard’s – he dropped his lute when sneaking past some REALLY Ugly Dudes, and Gorm lept through the Portal, and Terrance followed.
With that, we were off.
The group had just landed on the far side of the Portal. They were in a cathedral-like room (from an aesthetic standpoint). On the far side was a large door and two Golem-crafted turrets. There was a chasm in the middle, and a shattered bridge. Terrance and Gorm tried to avoid the turrets, while Flowerblossom turned into a bird and flew between the turrets, causing them to attack each other, blowing them both up.
During the fight, Terrance lost his staff down the chasm. Flowerblossom flew around like a badass and got the staff back. Gorm attempted to cross the chasm with rope, while Terrance decided the Portal was likely a place of power and just recreated the bridge. The extra cost was it was unbelievably noisy, and the magic reverberated off the Portal, drawing the attention of others.
Opening the door across the bridge, the players discovered a room with a rotating circular floor trap and a statue of a fallen angel. The “trap” was meant only to provide terrain trickiness during a fight with the statue, but the players got Gorm and Terrance across it and then Flowerblossom just flew over it. Goddamn druids. The fallen angel statue (twenty feet tall) came to life as they got to the other side. Gorm was a pimp, but got beaten up and lost his non-dominant fingers in the process. Terrance did what wizards do in a fight when trying to conserve their spells. Flowerblossom returned from bird form to human in mid-flight, thwacking the statue with his shillelagh. Then, our halfling barbarian rolled under the stone-spear-tentacle-wings (going for an evil-Tyrael vibe) and stabbed the statue in the leg, finally ending the magic while getting Shaky as the tentacle-wings slammed his head into the floor.
Past the statue room, the players encountered a large cathedral room hundreds of feet wide and filled with massive columns rising into the air, with claw marks rending holes in the ceiling. The players explored, finding a dais wherein sound was amplified. Flowerblossom tried to call to birds in the area for help from the dais, Discerning the Reality that the sound amplification nature of the dais plus bird chirps would carry for miles. Terrance tried to Detect Magic, but was overwhelmed by the divine power of the columns (used to corrupt divine goodness), and screamed in pain while standing on the dais, echoing loudly and attracting attention.
Immediately, goblins with batwings started crashing through the cathedral windows. They attacked en masse. Gorm and Flowerblossom the Panther got to work. Wave after wave of goblin fell to the pair. Terrance wanted to use a ritual to knock everybody down. We “discussed,” and came to the conclusion that he could seal the room if he got to the wall. Terrance took off while Flowerblossom and Gorm continued to murderhobo. Two goblins crashed in front of Terrance and through their spears at them. He wanted to dodge under the spears and hit them with Magic Missiles. A natural 12 on DD, a 10 on Casting, and an 8 on 2d4 damage. Terrance threw his bag of books and staff into the air, rolled under the spears, filled each goblin’s face with a handful of Magic Missile, caught his gear and made it to the wall. He sealed the room, white alabaster magic covering the walls, while Gorm and Flowerbossom finished off the Goblins.
They decided to rest while the room was sealed. Flowerblossom in his infinite WIS pointed out he would take watch since he didn’t need to eat. He rolled his dice, however, and realized he did need to sleep. While the party was passed out, a giant gargoyle twenty feet long with an even greater wingspan ripped open a hole in the roof, fell to the ground, and shouted “WHO IS IN MY HOME?!”
Thoughts
Preparation: While I’ve read the rules a dozen times, I hadn’t thought I was going to run, so that was intense. I’ll be running a session in June for which I am prepared, and I have cards for druid forms and all that jazz. Running it by the seat of my pants was exhausting, but fun. Having not played traditional fantasy in two-plus years, I felt mildly overwhelmed.
Ritual: Potent, but fun. I remembered that the GM could only limit, not prohibit, but I forgot that the wizard doesn’t even need to roll. Such a great power. The fact that “place of power” isn’t defined is both a boon and a bane. I love that it’s not quantified (so that there’s some wiggle room), but when the PCs are in a Bastion of Fallen Angels in their eternal war with the forces of Heaven, it kinda makes the whole place a “place of power.” So that was fudgy. I told Terrance that in the cathedral chamber it was a place of power, but the nature of the room/columns and his lack of understanding of divine magic, it would corrupt whatever he tried to do.
Creativity of GM: I feel like somebody who does a 5K every weekend and feels “fit” suddenly deciding to try out CrossFit. I got my ass handed to me. That thing was exhausting.
Creativity of Players: Terrance pointed out that DW requires a far greater contribution (creatively) on the players’ part. I agree. We all had a blast (I think?), but it definitely delegates some responsibility for campaign creation to the players, which can be taxing. Nirvana Players might be slightly off-put by this game.
Druid Form: Man, DW really allows you to build a class around this power. When Flowerblossom chose a second form, a panther, and I gave him a move “Strike Quickly,” his player was concerned that it might not be fun for me if he kept choosing the same creature, especially since he had an auto-hit. I told him not to worry about it, partly because I was creatively exhausted, so if he wanted it I was fine with it, and mostly because, as I pointed out to him, a 6- on his shapeshift roll was carte blanche for me to really fuck with him.
Waves of Creatures: I remembered this halfway through the goblin fight, that tracking individual HP is less important. Will make greater use of that in the future. A great mechanic.
Had a blast, can’t wait to do it again.
With Wil Horsley, Michael Smith, and Philip Clarke.
So, this is the first part of the write-up of a session of Dungeon World.
So, this is the first part of the write-up of a session of Dungeon World. This might very well be the most detailed write up I’ve made so far, but I think I owe it to the players, as the “boring and obvious” method really added layer upon layer of detail and background.
So, this is an example of how much detail you can pack unto a game in roughly 3 hours, when you go with your first thought about everything, instead of trying to be clever.
I have been meaning to post this all week, but my AP write up has become a true monster, so I thought I would give a…
I have been meaning to post this all week, but my AP write up has become a true monster, so I thought I would give a quick shout out to the folks that helped me pull this off.
So my daughter turned 10. For her birthday party she wanted me to run an RPG. She didn’t really care about the ruleset (when you are ten, who does really? I certainly didn’t), So I picked DW because I felt the focus on telling a story (as opposed to rules crunch) would be easier with new folks. Audrey gave me some loose guidelines (it has to take place in a forest, with giant trees, and as many creatures as possible) and I filled in a loose set of encounters. 3 primary encounters (deranged wood elves, who need your help, Tomb of the centaur king, Ogre chain gang) to the 4th and final encounter to save the forest by removing the cancerous dragon from the forests mother tree. Each encounter was set up to focus on at least 2 of the characters moves (i.e. tomb was for the cleric and thief to shine, but the since the cleric ended up deciding to be evil it all became wonderfully muddled, “There is NO WAY I am going in there with the evil cleric”)
For prep I printed out Jeremy Friesen http://takeonrules.com/2013/05/08/dungeon-world-campaign-playbook/ for me and +Patrick Henry Downs character sheets http://nerdwerds.blogspot.com/2013/05/dungeon-world-playbooks.html for the girls which truly was the best thing I could have done, as the girls immediately groked the rules based on the moves and the book format with a big image on the front was a plus for drawing them in. Also I convinced Eric from Gamma Ray Games to let me rifle through a new box of reaper mini’s for 10 year old girl appropriate adventurers (which they all got to keep as the party favor). The char sheets and the minis made everyone very focused and excited.
Chargen took a while (“Encumbrance? What is that”?, “Ignore it we always did when we played”), but it was pure fun (bonds were insane). We only hit 2 of the planned encounters (Deranged Wood elves, and the Centaur King’s Tomb) in 3 hours before folks had to go home, but there was a great set up scene at the last wobbly inn before the forest (which came from the girls) and a shit ton of in character table banter/ and bickering. Turned out the whole party goes to adventure school together and this was spring break. The 2 encounters were fantastic, and after the first one the ideas of moves and holds really settled in.
Bonds were sealed and much experience was gained (I was trying to get them enough to get the sensation of leveling up, but we didn’t have enough time, the Thief came the closest). Every girl except for one wanted to play again the next weekend (to which most parents responded, “maybe this summer”!) Overall it was an incredible experience, that I am not sure could have happened without #DungeonWorld .
Our campaign log, now three sessions in.
Our campaign log, now three sessions in. This game had Oerik the Dwarven Cleric (now level 3!), Augustine the Paladin (level 2), and two new characters, a human druid known as “The Spike” and a Gelfling (new to me) Ranger, Kira.
Map and drawing inspired by our Dungeon World game we kicked off with Marshall Miller’s lovely ‘The Sky Chain’…
Map and drawing inspired by our Dungeon World game we kicked off with Marshall Miller’s lovely ‘The Sky Chain’ dungeon starter.
Third session in our ongoing campaign: the party’s new Ranger adopted a lizardfolk toddler whose band had been…
Third session in our ongoing campaign: the party’s new Ranger adopted a lizardfolk toddler whose band had been slaughtered by the Paladin’s order (the Paladin is AWOL), the Ranger got jumped by a racist dwarf in a bar fight, a little dwarven boy told the Paladin he wanted to be like him when he grew up, and the party was sent on a mission by an Summit of Dwarven and Orcish lords to find the Orc One Eye who was engaging in necromancy–a potential violation of the Treaty of Stoneblock that ended the Orco-Dwarvish War.